NEIGHBOURS are breathing a sigh of relief and crossing their fingers that nine years of misery caused by squatters is finally over.

The unwanted guests have been intimidating residents in Hillcrest Road, Acton, leaving many elderly residents too scared to go out after dark. They turned the vacant homes they claimed into eyesores, smashing windows and dumping rubbish and have been blamed for a number of break-ins.

Neighbours even had to tell the milkman where to hide their milk to stop it being stolen from their front steps.

Eventually they were forced to take action themselves, barricading the doors and windows of one derelict house which has had squatters on and off for nine years. Police could not act as they were unable to trace the owner.

But then a larger home was invaded before Christmas and the trouble continued.

Neighbour Beryl Bashford, 79, said: “For nine years we had squatters after squatters. It was dreadful.

“There are a lot of single ladies living here, many of them elderly, you felt to frightened to post a letter after dark because you had to go past them. When you saw a lot of scruffy, unshaven men coming out, you didn’t know what they were going to do. It was very menacing. It sounds like a small thing but not when you had to live with it everyday.”

But with the second squat raided by police last Monday (6) and 12 people evicted, and the news the other has finally been put up for sale and secured by estate agents, it is hoped the problems may be over.

It could not have come soon enough for Ms Bashford who was terrified when a homeless man wandered into her home on Boxing Day night.

She said: “I had come home and pushed the shared front door too as I had more things to get from the car. I heard the front door bang and looked out of my flat to see a man sitting his head between his knees. It was a great shock. I ran back inside and called the police. “He left before they got here. I think he was just trying to get warm.

“The police, especially the PCSOs from the South Acton Safer Neighbourhood Team, have been very good through it all.